Dot Matrix printer

[tripico]

Is there a way to send a form feed command to a dot matrix printer?
I have a report needs to be printed to a dot matrix printer (Carbon Copies) but after the first page, it does not resert to the top of the page for the next print.

 

[RuralGuy]

What sort of printer driver are you using? Have you tried putting a Page Break control on your page footer?

 

[tripico]

I'm using the the driver that came with windows.
Added the page break control.. but it's still not sending the form back to the top

 

[RuralGuy]

What kind of printer? Dot Matrix printers have been printing graphics for years and I assume yours is printing in graphics mode. Just sending a FormFeed to the printer will probably not do it. It sounds like something else is going on. I've had an 9 pin OkiData Turbo printing properly from Access for several years.

 

[tripico]

It's a Oki Microline 590 (24 Pin).
How can I tell which mode it's in?

 

[RuralGuy]

Is it printing graphically (does the report look the same as it does in preview mode)? If so then it is graphics mode. I don't even know if Access can print in a text mode. Is your report more than one page long and page two is not at the top of the page? How have you defined the paper in the printer driver?

 

[KenHigg]

Post 21 here may help:

http://www.access-programmers.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=99777

 

[tripico]

It's probably in Graphics mode..
In the driver settings, it's set to print on letter size paper.

The print jobs are more like order forms. But I'm trying to print multiple orders at once and when the next order comes up.. it does not do a form feed to the next form but continues to print the order right after it finishes the first order.

May have to to go back to printing to a laser with 4 copies.. haha

 

[tripico]

Post 21 here may help:

http://www.access-programmers.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=99777

I looked at that but it does not seem to work for me. The data has to align properly in the form fed carbon paper.

 

[RuralGuy]

So you need the report to end with a PageEject right? Are you using a Report Footer? How about putting a Page Break in there? There is a "Force New Page" property on the Format tab of the property sheet for the ReportFooter section.

 

[KenHigg]

Did you look at the 'Open "LPT1:" For Output As #1' line of code? I'm guessing you'll need to use a like statement sending control character to the printer. If you need to do something more than a full line feed I'm guessing your printer will have a code you can send it to do an incremental advance...

fyi: I have had zero luck sending MS Access reports to old dot matrix printers, things always get out of alignment after two or three forms.

 

[tripico]

So you need the report to end with a PageEject right? Are you using a Report Footer? How about putting a Page Break in there? There is a "Force New Page" property on the Format tab of the property sheet for the ReportFooter section.

Tried this and still no go.. must be a setting on the printer. The printer seems to not want to set the form to the TEAR position after it finishes printing. Does not recognize where the end of the paper is either.

 

[gemma-the-husky]

form feed is normally a chr(12) on dot matrix printers (ctrl-L)

can't you do a print# chr(12) (or whatever the print line command is)

 

[RuralGuy]

Tried this and still no go.. must be a setting on the printer. The printer seems to not want to set the form to the TEAR position after it finishes printing. Does not recognize where the end of the paper is either.

Are you saying that the printer does not go into alarm when it runs out of paper? Do you have the same issues with the printer from Word?

 

[tripico]

Are you saying that the printer does not go into alarm when it runs out of paper? Do you have the same issues with the printer from Word?

Printing from Word, Access, Excel, Notepad... it all seems to act the same way.

I'm printing a Packing slip with mutilple line items on to the form. Once it finishes the first page. It does not go to TOF to print onto the second page. Rather, it continues to print on the bottom of the first page. and never brings the form to the TEAR position that it was set at.

This is for printing on a OKI Microline 590.
We have other print jobs that runs from a spool file on our AS400 server and the prints run fine. It's just on the windows platform that the printer does not know where the end of the page is. The driver used is an "OKI ML 590" driver found within windows.

I've tried all of the above suggestions but still with no luck.

 

[RuralGuy]

Have you checked to see if you have the latest Oki driver? It sure sounds like either a printer or printer driver problem. Does your printer go into alarm when it runs out of paper?

 

[RuralGuy]

According to Oki it looks like the WindowsXP driver is the latest. BTW, what OS are you using for this task?

 

[tripico]

I'm using windows XP.. and it does go to alarm when it's out of paper.
So when you print a report to your dot matrix printer. Does it automatically set the form to the tear position once it finishes printing?

 

[RuralGuy]

So when you print a report to your dot matrix printer. Does it automatically set the form to the tear position once it finishes printing?

Yes it does and I did nothing special to make that happen.

 

[RuralGuy]

I just loaded the ML 590 driver to see what was in there. Are you printing directly to the printer or going through the spooler?